1. Decision Skills
Week Two Group Activity:
Behavioral Decision Making
and Decision Process
The group deliverable/submission for this assignment
is to capture a summary of your group’s reactions to
the two cases and any insights generated in applying
the course concepts to the cases.
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2. This week’s group project has two cases to discuss.
First work the cases individually, then have a group
discussion to share your perspective with others.
Case # 1The Team Project


Watch the Team
Dynamics and Decision
Process video posted on
the NovoEd site.
Capture your reactions to
the prompts for later
discussion with your team.
Case #2 Smith Family

Read the instructions
closely.

Do the activity in order.

Capture your reactions to
the prompts and then
have a discussion with
your team.
Note: As a team, you should agree where you want to focus
your time and attention in discussing the cases.
© 2013 Decision Education Foundation All Rights Reserved

3. Team Project Video Case
(Cross-cultural note: while individuals in different cultures may not face the same exact
situation, it is increasingly common for individuals to need to work effectively and
cooperatively in teams, often with little formal authority, which is the case here.)
1. Watch the Team Project Video - (Team Dynamics and Decision Process)
Capture briefly what you think happened.
The opinion belongs to only one girl and it is a imposition, Although one of the team feels right, not all the team agree.
What choices were made in the video?

Just one choice from one of the team
What is the likely outcome of the project?
Lack of quality because there are not alternatives and participation form team, besides we could also see lack of motivation in one of the
members.
Is there a victim? Yes
Who is responsible for the breakdown? The 3 of them, One girl because she wants to impose her ideas, the boy because he do not consider
the rest of ideas and analyze it, and the small girl because she does not express her unconformity.
2. Watch the video a second time. As you watch, take the perspective of the individual you feel was most responsible. Who would they say is at
fault?
Did you see things you hadn’t previously?
Have you experienced anything like this? How could decision process help? Yes I have experienced thigs like this before.
The decision process could help in order to get a high quality decision, respecting the order :
Frame: What is the problem and what people is involved?
Values: With alternatives, clear values as a group, right information from each one
Evaluate:
And take a decision, with values and decision as a team!
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4. Smith Family Case
(Cross-cultural note: while not all cultures face the same exact situation, all cultures
face questions around health and care of aging parents. A discussion of cultural
difference is likely to be an interesting direction for group discussion.

For the following case, it will work best if you work through the document
without looking ahead.
— First, read the case on the following page and come back to this page.
— Next, list below the key questions or issues you see as being important
to address.
© 2013 Decision Education Foundation All Rights Reserved

5. Smith Family Decision Situation
The Smith family has a big decision to make. Mrs. Smith’s elderly mother, Irene Brown, has
been showing clear signs of Alzheimer’s Disease. Her frequent spells of memory loss have
become quite disturbing and are potentially dangerous. It seems clear that she should no
longer live alone in her own apartment. But where should she go?
One possibility is to have Irene move in with the Smiths. To make space, the Smiths’ two
teenage daughters would have to share a bedroom - this is not something either of them
would like. Also, Mrs. Smith would have to adjust her work schedule so that she could be
home most of the time to look after her mother.
Another possibility is to put Irene into some form of assisted-living arrangement. The Smiths
are unsure which type of care would be most appropriate for Irene both in her current
condition, and in her possible future conditions.
Mr. Smith worries about how long Irene’s finances would allow her to remain in assisted
living. Meanwhile, Mrs. Smith is wrestling with conflicting feelings. On the one hand, she
feels that as a dutiful daughter she should make sacrifices to care for her mother. On the
other, she believes that the needs of her own family and of her career weigh heavily toward
putting her mother in an assisted living home.
© 2013 Decision Education Foundation All Rights Reserved

6. Discussion of Smith Family Case
(There is a final
slide after this)
Go back to your list of questions/issues for the case study and categorize them by head focused, heart focused or both.
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Did you notice that you were more likely to identify one type (head/heart) of issue more than the other? I am more heart than head.
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Would you say that you are a person that leads more from the head or more from the heart? More with my heart.
What kind of decision is this, Head or Heart? Head and Heart.
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Share your list with your team mates and develop a master list.
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Discuss whether you found that others brought up issues you hadn’t considered.
Well, for me there is not enough information, depends on what is the degree of the illness, at the beginning I can take her to my
house, and after a while I can leave her in a hospital asking for help from government and my own family, taking step by step in this
case is better than taking a closed decision. The care value is very important, also family value, but get a job and good environment
in the house are also important. ( This is a tough decision).
Another quote is that decision does not only belong to my, it only belongs to my whole family.
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Assuming you found others saw things you didn’t, what does this say about the importance of teams or multiple perspectives to
difficult decisions? More alternatives and more quality you can get from different perspectives, the richer information is not in the
similarity, it is in the difference.
© 2013 Decision Education Foundation All Rights Reserved

7. Tying the Week 2 topics and activities together:
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The three key topics in this week revolve around the behavioral aspects of decision making
— Decision Traps (more technically, cognitive biases and heuristics)
— Balancing Head and Heart (Cognition and Affect)
— Decision Process (which helps in balancing and avoiding Traps)
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How does the Decision Trap of Selective Attention (seeing what you are most interested in and discounting
other information) play a role in these two cases? Participating with others, and thinking with head and
heart are strongly necessary.
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How does Decision Process help to answer the challenges that are created by Decision Traps and our own
personal strengths, weaknesses and experiences? I need to practice more!.
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The group deliverable/submission for this assignment is to capture a summary of your group’s
reactions to the two cases and any insights generated in applying the course concepts to the
cases.
© 2013 Decision Education Foundation All Rights Reserved